The final away game of the season, and the final LFW awayday of the campaign, saw Rangers travel to Oakwell where they finally completed their first double of the season with a 1-0 win against Barnsley.

1 – The Match An even contest between two meagre sides with nothing to play for at the end of the campaign. Barnsley perhaps had marginally the better of the 90 minutes, but their best opportunities were repelled by man of the match Radek Cerny, while the contest was ultimately settled by a fine long range goal from Mikele Leigertwood. There’s little more to say than that, both teams looked like they were simply playing out time and it had nil nil written all over it barring mistakes or miracles, and we got one of the latter.

5/10

2 – QPR performance Not a million miles away from the meek and lifeless surrenders we saw at Middlesbrough and Coventry in the season’s darkest days but with some much needed subtle differences. Firstly the R’s suddenly look a bit meaner in defence – the three goals in those two games I mentioned were all absolute gifts, against Barnsley and throughout the final few games of the season Peter Ramage was both a defensive rock and a leader of the team. At Barnsley Neil Warnock started young Josh Parker at right back and he was guided throughout by Ramage with calming words and advice – the pair of them were very impressive. Having said that Cerny was clearly the man of the match and we’ve missed having a keeper in this form for most of the season. Across the midfield we had both creation in the centre, through Faurlin and Buzsaky, and hard work. Up front we were lacking again, German didn’t have a particularly good game, nor Priskin, nor Simpson when he came on. Warnock’s repeated aim to add three strikers to his line up this summer becomes more pressing with each passing game.

6/10

3 – QPR supportBearing in mind this was a meaningless game Rangers travelled in decent numbers for what is a long trip by road and a journey of at least one change on the train. Buoyed by the prospect of an away win provided by Leigertwood’s first half strike the 600 or so hardy souls basking in the away end sunshine spent most of the second half entertaining themselves with noisy and persistent chants praising the club’s former heroes – a Kevin Gallen’s magic chant lasted the thick end of ten minutes. Towards the end of the game a line of brightly dressed stewards formed lines of blue, green and orange in front of the away end. There was at least one steward for each QPR fan, particularly if you count a couple of them who’d clearly eaten a couple of their colleagues twice, and this brought considerably mirth from the Rangers fans who mocked them for their weight and the pointlessness of it all. I don’t think any QPR fan had actually considered a pitch invasion prior to the arrival of this fleshy barrier but at the final whistle the reason for their arrival became apparent.

7/10

4 - Atmosphere Oakwell is consistently the quietest ground we visit. I think a large part of this is because the away end is flanked by empty seats in both side stands back to the halfway line and beyond. So when you take into account the rows of seats in front of you, concrete walkway, advertising hoarding, gravel walkway, grass and then pitch it’s probably the best part of 200 yards between you and the nearest home fan. That, coupled with Barnsley’s understandably (poor team, small town, little to cheer recently, bigger draws on doorstep) low attendances gives games here the atmosphere of your average reserve team match. Having remained silent throughout the match the home fans suddenly sprang to life at the final whistle when thousands of them raced onto the pitch to mark the final home game of the season. This was obviously expected, hence the presence of Yorkshire Fat Fighters in front of the away end and clearly Barnsley believe it’s cheaper to simply line a few rows of the bad, mad and sad looking for an extra tenner on a Saturday afternoon in front of the away ends to prevent the chavs getting to us rather than line them right around the ground and try and stop them going on the pitch full stop. Fair enough and I’m certainly not going to argue with the common sense of it, except to say that QPR are routinely hauled over the coals by the league for such offences as throwing an apple onto the pitch and occasional invasions from individuals and yet Barnsley are apparently allowed to send the population of the town out there without opposition once a season without consequence. I don’t think they should be punished, but a level playing field wouldn’t go amiss.

4/10

5 – The Ground Simply put it’s too big, for us and for them. QPR’s following was half decent all things considered but in a stand built for 6000 people we felt a little bit lost behind the goal. One thing I’d never realised before, and only found out too late here, was that there is actually a bottle bar at the back of the concourse looking out over the training facilities at the back. I’ll be making more use of that next season. To the right of the away end the old wooden main stand with the open bank at the front and the covered shack at the back remains with the camera gantry still clinging to the roof for dear life. I remember baking in that old wooden stand when Mark Perry scored in a 3-1 win up here back in 1996, thankfully the away facilities are now excellent – if memory serves the toilets actually have no roof in that side stand. Behind the opposite goal is a similar one tiered stand with the club shop and offices to the rear, to the left an impressive two tiered side stand with boxes. It’s a tidy ground, one of the nicest in the division, but it’s a quiet and lonely place when there are this many empty seats.

7/10

6 – The Journey Certainly not much of a journey for the Sheffield R’s. We braved the gauntlet of Swansea fans going to Bramall Lane to slip quietly onto a train at about 2pm. Once there we cracked open a couple of cold beers that went down very nicely on a scorching day, and it turned out we weren’t alone as a nervous “You R’s” from the back of the train met with similarly timid replies from about ten other passengers. We are a polite lot. Coming back I raced round the town searching in vain for an off license or super market, as it turned out beer would have been a God send on a train that was essentially a slow cooker on wheels when it arrived, but found only a large black man having a fight with two or three white chavs outside the bus station while their mates stood around singing the national anthem. It’s a bit of a backward place Barnsley at times, but not far away thankfully.

7/10

7 – The pre-match Barnsley is, infamously, the place where we tend to endure our pre-match drinks in the bar at the Metrodome Leisure Centre. The positive aspect of this is you can literally fall down the hill from there and into the away end in about a minute and a half. The negative aspects are numerous – there’s no Sky for the lunchtime game, the beer comes in the dreaded plastic glasses, the food tastes like it’s been dragged through the dregs at the bottom of the vat at a plastics factory, it gets heaving and the bar is always understaffed, and let’s be honest where in this country can you actually have a nice drink while overlooking a swimming pool? One northern idiot doing a Peter Kay impression after another does not a Saturday afternoon make. So we decided to trust a later train and drink in our usual Old Monk in the middle of Sheffield, have an hour of Spurs at Man Utd (points off for Man Utd winning) and then journey up to Barnsley. Now the Old Monk means Owain had to have a breakfast sausage, as this disgusting congealed mass of fried heart attack has seen us through four away games without defeat this season and must continue to be consumed while the run is intact. For those who have missed previous mentions of this culinary delight it’s a sausage burnt to a crisp, wrapped in an egg, wrapped in a pancake, and served in a bap. If I tell you that people on the other side of the table were gagging from the smell that probably tells you all you need to know.

After the game we drank far too much in the Sheffield Tap, the excellent new bar at the train station, and then we all decamped to Nandos and finally the Common Room for AC Milan v Palermo. Owain, Lindsey and myself were all, it’s fair to say, rather the worse for wear by the end of all that, although the member of our group who fell asleep o the cocktail menu last time we ventured into the Common Room did manage to remain upright this time.

8/10

8 – Police/Stewards No real sign of either until the last ten minutes of the game when suddenly everybody in Barnsley who wasn’t already at the game turned up in a brightly coloured coat and stood in front of the away end. They seemed to take the jibes of the away fans in good heart and look a bit embarrassed to be there. As usual the away fans were allowed to stand at the back unchecked, one of the only grounds we’re allowed to do this, and that’s a welcome and rare application of common sense.

7/10

Total: 51/80

Photo: Action Images

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